Assistance Choosing a NAS router/modem

[SoloFlyer]

Need a new modem with stronger output so am thinking about setting up a NAS / media hub while Im at it.

I'm not sure I need a 'box' with internal storage. Most of my stuff gets put on portable storage. But easily transferred I guess.

I'd like to have torrent-box capabilities. I'm not sure if most of them do this, or just the ones that explicitly say so on the box??

I was close to going for a Buffalo link station (n-300 or 600??) but see that Belkin now has a flashy unit they say it 28x faster??? (also 9k thb).

Also important that the range can easily cover a mid-sized 2 storey house.

Anyway ... what are the features and specs I should be looking for?

Cheers.

[muratremix]

You want a NAS or usb port wifi router?

Wifi routers write/read speed to USB hdd is pretty slow, but enough for HD movie streaming.

You can check asus rt-n66u or rt-n66ac models. They have 2 usb port and can share disk via cloud / samba (windows file sharing) / ftp.

Asus router is N900 / N1750

[SoloFlyer]

M, I gather these days they can kinda do both??

[muratremix]

Wireless routers are too slow for nas purposes, but they are okay to stream movies from usb drives to your network. Read / Write speeds are 10-12 Mb/sec at best.

That asus router is less than 6000 baht and you can find it in Fortune Town / Network 97 shop in 2nd floor.

[SoloFlyer]

Thanks Mura, so it would take forever to copy say from the notebook to the router/detachable storage? But writing from downloads would be ok I presume?

Are you saying I would need a NAS box to do decent transfers from notebook? What would you recommend looking at in that case?

[lomatopo]

Personally I'd separate the NAS and router/WiFi solutions and purchase separate units.

Re: NAS, I've been looking at some Synology solutions, and these do offer quite a few decent features including stand-alone torrenting (AKA "Download Station").

http://www.synology.com/products/product.php?product_name=DS213j〈=enu

http://www.synology.com/dsm/home_home_applications_download_station.php?lang=enu

For a router, the ASUS Dual-Band Wireless-N 600 Router (RT-N56U) seems to get pretty decent reviews. Based on the thread title (..../Modem) I'm guessing the OP has DSL, so could keep the present CPE and use it as a modem, bridged to the new router?

[SoloFlyer]

Personally I'd separate the NAS and router/WiFi solutions and purchase separate units.

Re: NAS, I've been looking at some Synology solutions, and these do offer quite a few decent features including stand-alone torrenting (AKA "Download Station").

http://www.synology.com/products/product.php?product_name=DS213j〈=enu

http://www.synology.com/dsm/home_home_applications_download_station.php?lang=enu

For a router, the ASUS Dual-Band Wireless-N 600 Router (RT-N56U) seems to get pretty decent reviews. Based on the thread title (..../Modem) I'm guessing the OP has DSL, so could keep the present CPE and use it as a modem, bridged to the new router?

Ok, thanks. Download station looks interesting - part of it seems to have the capabilities of jDownloader, which is great.

Can these standalone NAS units take portable drives via USB? (as well as the built in drives?)

lomotopo, are you familiar with the new Belkin unit I refer to above? (cant see it on their websites, or chi-chang where I saw it).

[lomatopo]

Can these standalone NAS units take portable drives via USB?

Probably varies by unit? Easy enough to review the specs.

http://www.synology.com/products/spec.php?product_name=DS213j〈=enu#p_submenu

External Ports

USB 2.0 Port 2

File System

Internal Drives EXT4

External Drives

EXT4

EXT3

FAT

NTFS

HFS+ (Read Only)

[muratremix]

Personally I'd separate the NAS and router/WiFi solutions and purchase separate units.

Re: NAS, I've been looking at some Synology solutions, and these do offer quite a few decent features including stand-alone torrenting (AKA "Download Station").

http://www.synology.com/products/product.php?product_name=DS213j〈=enu

http://www.synology.com/dsm/home_home_applications_download_station.php?lang=enu

For a router, the ASUS Dual-Band Wireless-N 600 Router (RT-N56U) seems to get pretty decent reviews. Based on the thread title (..../Modem) I'm guessing the OP has DSL, so could keep the present CPE and use it as a modem, bridged to the new router?

Ok, thanks. Download station looks interesting - part of it seems to have the capabilities of jDownloader, which is great.

Can these standalone NAS units take portable drives via USB? (as well as the built in drives?)

lomotopo, are you familiar with the new Belkin unit I refer to above? (cant see it on their websites, or chi-chang where I saw it).

I use Synology DS212j (6400 baht without disks) in 2Tb Raid 0 (Mirroring for data protection). It has 2 usb ports so you can connect external drives aswell. DS213J is new model and sold for same price in Bangkok.

Bundled downloader is a bit weak, but you can install pyLoad which supports downloading from file share sites like jdownloader. It can download files to external usb disks aswell.

I get 40-50 mb read, 35-40 mb write speeds to nas device which is pretty much enough for my needs. I installed vpn server (pptp, openvpn) to nas device so I can use my Thai IP address while aborad (to watch Tot IP TV for Thai channels).

However, to run synology, you must have atleast one disk drive inside. It will not install Synology OS to external usb.

[damole]

I just decided today I'm going to buy a Synology DS213j, now I just need to find somewhere in Chiang Mai that stocks then.

Mura, do you mean raid 1? I thought about using raid 0, striped, for my gaming machine but then I went with an ssd and Intel's Smart Response system. MSI used to sell a laptop with 2 HDD bays setup in raid 0 for better performance.

Now my main laptop, netbook and gaming desktop all have hybrid ssd disk drives.

[muratremix]

I just decided today I'm going to buy a Synology DS213j, now I just need to find somewhere in Chiang Mai that stocks then.

Mura, do you mean raid 1? I thought about using raid 0, striped, for my gaming machine but then I went with an ssd and Intel's Smart Response system. MSI used to sell a laptop with 2 HDD bays setup in raid 0 for better performance.

Now my main laptop, netbook and gaming desktop all have hybrid ssd disk drives.

Yes i meant raid 1, made a typo.

These nas devices use slower arm cpu so faster raid is unnecessary. Perhaps try to find it online? Search it in google in thai language websites only. Invadeit also might have it.

[muratremix]

It seems all Synology Nas models has a price increase of 1000 baht. InvadeIT and other thai nas shop online had a price of 7650 baht for DS213J. It was 6600 baht a month ago or two.

[SoloFlyer]

FYI:http://lifehacker.com/grab-a-discounted-synology-480gb-ssd-and-100-canon-t-1446319476

Im still trying to convince myself if I need such a beast ??

[muratremix]

SSD on NAS is extremely waste of money.

Faster NAS models are not for home usage but for SOHO / business usage.

40-50 mb/s writing speed over gigabit ethernet is more than enough for average home user considering usb 2.0 external drives can max out 30mb/s only.

I plan to upgrade to DS413j sometime in future for 4 disk raid 5 + faster transfer speeds and bigger capacity.

[damole]

I just saw that the DS214 is out but not the j variant so I will wait a bit to see how soon it makes it to Thailand.